RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[AngryBirdsFan436]

So NAM 32 will have RHW-12S and 10C, right? 

[jdenm8]

Maybe. It depends on whether we have ramp interfaces available for them. It's too early to have a definite answer.

[AngryBirdsFan436]

Well, are there going to be Secret Weapon videos before 3/1?   Or it's going to be "We'll find out when it's released" thingy? Well, it's only 2 weeks before NAM 31 gets released so I won't expect one!

[sunv123]

I think that I'll let this go.

Don't you feel spoiled enough with the release date? Then there was 2 videos for symphony. To me, they are working their butts off with NAM.

I wouldn't expect it, but it might happen. Just wait to see.

[jmdude1]

i agree. enough with the questions, and you're already starting with nam 32? dang. as mentioned before, and in other threads, let's have some patience.
we're all anticipating the next release. the NAM team does great work so let us let them do it in peace. 

[MandelSoft]

Yes, calm down please! We first need to finish and distribute the NAM 31 first, and that's at this point still a heck of a job to do, not to mention the testing, ironing out the bugs in the NAM most of you don't get to see ever (yes, alpha versions of NAM releases are filled with stupid bugs). We need to iron that out first...

[GDO29Anagram]

Don't you feel spoiled enough with the release date? Then there was 2 videos for symphony. To me, they are working their butts off with NAM.

i agree. enough with the questions, and you're already starting with nam 32? dang. as mentioned before, and in other threads, let's have some patience.

^ This. And if I may add...

There's currently heavy scrutiny and last-minute dev going on right now (and it's not even the freeze date), and some going on as early as 3 AM Pacific Time (Keep in mind that some of us are in the US, such as myself, Tarkus, Jondor, and Z, so that's really late at night).

So please, please refrain from asking for anything specific for NAM 31, 32, or whatever. That includes specific features, how things work, or anything for the successive versions of the NAM. There simply is no way to conveniently answer such questions, and attempting to do so will not only delay development (to the point where, dare I say, we actually miss our own deadline), but the accuracy of that information will be short-lived and won't hold up to even the dev cycle of the next NAM.

[sunv123]

So please, stop the questions. Do you really need to know? Is it a life or death question? Nope, just calm down. How'd you feel if you were a NAM member?

Besides, everybody here is a HUMAN, not robots. Nobody is perfect, even the NAM team. We all have lives and RL is unpredictable, so not everything can be be just what you like.

Please, no more. Anyways, don't you love surprises?

Plus, don't make them think about locking it.

[Tarkus]

Plus, don't make them think about locking it.

We actually have had to do that a couple of times.  This thread spent a few days locked just before the RHW 3.0 release, and the NWM thread spent several months (yes, months) on lockdown.  We're generally happy to show stuff and answer reasonable questions or tech support matters, but when the ITPs/"requestions" get overwhelming (particularly in the weeks directly before a release), it takes the fun out of it for everyone.

Besides, I probably have another 500,000 lines or so of RUL2 code to crank out for release.

-Alex

[AngryBirdsFan436]

OKAY! OKAY! OKAY! I'll stop asking questions! As Patricius Maximus said on the PS thread, I'll just chill out and remain inactive on this board until 3/1/13. Take your time, NAM Team and please make it really functional, stable, and of course, AWESOME! 

[gn_leugim]

Take your time, NAM Team and please make it really functional, stable, and of course, AWESOME! 

Has any NAM work ever been different? :p they were all Awesome and this will be for sure Awesome 

[APSMS]

Please note that this isn't a request, but rather a testament to the great work that goes on behind the scenes--Although we won't have the 12S RHW for NAM 31 (or even NAM 32) I think I can sleep soundly knowing that, unlike Maxis, you guys won't code something and then leave it undone (like the ANT or the sewage exemplar for the water treatment plants).

So, in short, here's to dependability (and some 1.6 million lines of code). I think we can all agree that you've been very dependable in delivering stuff we didn't know we could do (and to think that EA got paid for what they left SC4 with!).

Just my thoughts. Can't wait for March.

P.S. Actually, I guess it's a good thing Maxis left so much stuff undone. Where would we be if they'd finished the ANT and left us with only the MHW?

[Indiana Joe]

here's to dependability

*Raises glass*

[GDO29Anagram]

P.S. Actually, I guess it's a good thing Maxis left so much stuff undone. Where would we be if they'd finished the ANT and left us with only the MHW?

<Parallel universe mode>

Sooner or later, an RHW will be made, but it would be made using puzzle pieces that use the MHW network instead. Granted, the RHW advances would come more slowly, that is, until the day that it becomes possible to create starters for two-tile networks. The RHW, however, would be called the Highway Widening Mod, because it widens the entirety of the MHW, and uses MHW.

Dirtroad is used as a dirtroad at first, but then a starter network (we'll call it Rural Road) for it gets made, like how GLR is made from ELR. It's essentially an asphalt version of the Dirtroad, but the intended functions of both the Dirt Road and Rural Road will begin to conflict with each other. A balance would eventually be found, and the Rural Road gets integrated with the HWM as a starter-based network called the PIN (Primary Interchange Network).

The first version of the HWM would only consist of puzzle pieces of the HWM-4 and then the HWM-6, initially based off of the MHW models. The HWM-4 is a two-tile network that has its two carriageways conjoined. The idea of having a split carriageway was unheard-of, though the Multi-MHW idea would then be taking off at this time. Diagonals weren't fully researched, either.

HWM-6 would be a two-tile network whose paths would take up only one tile. This is because the development of overhangs was not researched yet.

The initial HWM would include prefabs, but over time, simplicity would be sought out, and the HWM-4 and HWM-6 would be made simpler and simper to model, and prefabs would later fall out favour. The PIN would then be integrated at this point, along with the very first Ramp Interface. This will mark the beginning of Version 2.

It is at this point that further development on the HWM would be further outweighed by convenience; After all, who would wanna plop tons of puzzle pieces? The HWM would fall into a developmental slump. Where that extra developmental power goes is beyond me. (Perhaps the NWM?)

Years after a hiatus, the HWM comes out using starter-based networks, when it was previously unheard-of to create starter networks for two-tile networks. Helper pieces are introduced for the diagonals, as well as helper pieces for one-tile-wide HWM networks, enabling the creation of HWM-4 networks with split medians. More Ramp Interfaces are introduced, and elevated HWMs are also created.

There wouldn't be a P57 for the HWM, because its long hiatus provided plenty of time to reorganise the entire IID scheme. It would likely be the NWM that needed reorganisation, and P57 would instead refer to the NWM, not the HWM/RHW.

The HWM would eventually receive a P57-type treatment, except it's called P5E. That's when the idea of the Multi-Height System would come into play, and the HWM would then be expanded further to new heights. Unfortunately, the only network that will be forever left out would be DDHWM. This is due to the forever-secret development of the forever-secret network involving Rail as a base for DDHWMs. Because it would be kept under wraps for so long, the fundamental flaw with DDHWMs would be caught and DDHWMs would be permanently scrapped.

So in other words, there still would be an RHW, except that it'd be in the same developmental slump that the NWM was back in 2007-2010, it would only be limited to the features of RHW version 3, but the ability to create networks would still be there, except it would be quite limited compared to the RHW.

</Parallel universe mode>

So as an overview...

All of the RHW would be HWM-4, HWM-6, HWM-8, HWM-10. Only the HWM-6 and up would be able to have a variable-width median until the development of helper pieces comes along that enables the HWM-4 to also have variable-width medians. There would be no S or C networks. The MIS would be more evolved, and would come in three widths: PIN-1, PIN-2, and PIN-3. There would be no DDRHW/DDHWM networks due to capacity issues, and (probably at this point), the NWM would be nearing completion of P57, featuring its own Multi-Height System.

I always find alternate history to be a fun exercise, because it demonstrates how two of the same exact things would evolve over time given that the circumstances were a bit different. Here, instead of the Dirtroad being undeveloped, Dirtroad is a fully-integrated network. That's all it took.

But it's important to remember that the development of RHW hinged on the discovery of the Dirtroad network. It's only a big stroke of luck that such a network was even there from the beginning. It could've been deleted entirely from the game's files. (Road-based PIN?)

NAM History's extremely important here, and the original discoverer of the Dirtroad just so happen to post his thought on the RHW over at ST a few weeks ago. It's like stepping into a time machine...

-----

EDIT: OK, it's a bit of an overly optimistic alternate future, but the other alternate is that the Highway department of the NAM would exhaust itself from making MHW prefabs, and pretty much fizzling out long before 2011, leaving us with no RHW/HWM.

[MandelSoft]

Now that was fun to read . Although, there is another option in that parallel universe: we may have used the DirtRoad anyway as our base network for the RHW, since the use of the dirt road may not have been spectacularly high. In that way, we still would a RHW, which may have turned out to be more useful in the end than the dirt road, which has been ported over to the SAM. Same thing seems to go for Symphony at this moment, and for some people, GLR vs ELR, HSR vs Monorail or BTM vs Monorail. However, a more difficult alternate history (let's say we didin't fully use the dirt-road network) is more interesting to read. Maybe we would've went for the UHW approach too, but that would in the end turned out to be too labour intensive..

[sunv123]

I have to say, you guys have given us things that we wanted... and didn't even know we wanted! Back when RHW wasn't even in our minds, you guys gave a big bundle of fun and creation, not expected from anybody. After ahwile, we all wanted another one badly, just because of you guys. We really didn't know that we wanted it, but now we do, badly. The only way that that happened was because of your labor, trying your best to make NAM as good as it can, even with RL and other things that get in your way in life.

So really, you guys have transformed the game in many ways, making the "I guess i'll play" to "Oh, I've got to play".

So thanks to ALL of you for making this happen, so let's see something that will be amazing.

[Tarkus]

A stabilizing we go . . .



Edit: Now we're really cooking . . .



-Alex

[Durfsurn]

*drool* soooooo many lanes *drool*

[Tarkus]

More L1 RHW-10S goodness . . .



-Alex

[Durfsurn]

Gotta Have that!